We broke the tomato, and we’re using science to fix it

We've bred tomatoes for high productivity with no regard for their taste.

Thanks to decades of breeding, the modern agricultural tomato has a lot of properties that are great for farmers: the plants are incredibly productive, and the resulting tomatoes hold up well to shipping. Just one small problem: they are nearly tasteless. Heirloom tomato strains have become available precisely because people aren't especially interested in the mass-produced, modern tomato.

In the words of a panel at the meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of science, we "broke" the tomato by allowing the plant breeders to respond to the needs of farmers, instead of the tomato's end-users: consumers. As a result, their breeding has produced a product that most people don't actually enjoy eating. And that's a public health issue, given that tomato-rich diets have been associated with a variety of beneficial effects.

Fortunately, the panel featured a number of people who are trying to fix the tomato using up-to-date biochemistry and genetics.

Yale's Linda Bartoshuk set up the challenge with a little experiment: everyone in the audience was given a raspberry Jelly Belly. Bartoshuk had people hold their nose, then start chewing on the candy. For me, it tasted generically sweet. When, on her instructions, I released my finger, there was a sudden explosion of flavor, a lot of it evocative of raspberries—and a sudden murmur from the audience suggesting they were experiencing something similar.

What's going on? A lot of our experience of flavor really does come from smell, but not from breathing in; instead, volatile chemicals disperse out of the back of your mouth, with some of them reaching your nasal passages. Not only can these volatiles convey a distinctive flavor, but they can also interact with flavors sensed by the tongue, enhancing or suppressing sweetness, saltiness, etc.

Harry Klee of the University of Florida has put together a collection of over 200 tomatoes, some heirloom, some the mainstream agricultural strains. Using those, his team has characterized the volatile chemicals present in each, coming up with a list of about 68. They've also put about 100 of those tomatoes to the test with a panel of tasters, who rated their appeal and flavor. (One of the things he discovered is that some heirloom strains are "really not very good.")

The result is that the team has what you might consider a statistical recipe for a good tomato. Generally, what consumers like is perceived sweetness (though other factors also played in, like saltiness and tartness). And in general, the perceived sweetness was roughly in line with the amount of sugar present. But only roughly. Klee pointed out two varieties (Matina and Yellow Jelly Bean) that had similar levels of sugar, but one was perceived as twice as sweet as the other—the one with slightly less sugar.

The difference: the concentration of various volatiles in the tomatoes which are quite often derivatives of carotenoids, chemicals most closely associated with carrots. The derivatives were considered fruity and floral, and were correlated with both perceived sweetness and likability. Fortunately, the pathways that convert the carotenoids into these derivates are fairly well understood, and the authors leveraged some genetics. Tomatoes with knockouts of the genes involved in creating these derivatives were tested with consumers, and these confirmed that the resulting fruit were rated as lower sweetness.

Klee's team has started identifying alleles that enable production of a variety of volatiles in heirloom strains, and started introducing them into high production commercial strains. According to him, a single cross can give heirloom flavor with double the yield of the original heirloom strain—not enough to get commercial growers to switch, but a step in the right direction. Further breeding and, if necessary, some genetic engineering may return the heirloom genes, along with some taste, to the modern tomato.

We have a few pots with tomato plants out on the lanai. When people try them, they're shocked at how good they are. I doubt they're anything special, other than the fact that they're just basic tomatoes, and people aren't used to having a "real" tomato anymore.

We live in Florida, where many tomatoes are grown. You can pass tomato trucks on the highway, but if you're not from around here, you might not recognize them as tomatoes because they're still green. They're picked from the vine still green because they're easier to transport that way. They're later ripened with gas (CO2, I think) closer to their destination. Part of the problem with this method is that they wind up mostly flavorless.

It has always been obvious to me that food engineering (whether that's selective breeding, genetic modification, or creative chemistry) is critical to human society. You want engineered foods for the same reason you want engineered bridges and buildings -- lives depend on getting it right, and we as a species have grown far beyond the scale where just operating on tradition and intuition (be it in food or architecture) is good enough.

However, my support for this kind of food technology has always been challenged by people optimizing on the wrong variables. These things are just tools. Just because someone used the tools to make tomatoes tasteless, or to accomplish whatever Monsanto is guilty of today, doesn't mean the tools bad themselves. So I am particularly happy to people using the tools for ends which people are likely to find more appetizing.

There's a pretty in depth, open access paper here (http://jxb.oxfordjournals.org/content/53/377/2107.long) that describes lots of the goodies in the ripe tomato. I'm guessing that producers have bred tomatoes that don't ripen very well compared to their tomato ancestors, because ripe tomatoes, full of lycopenes, carotenoids etc are also squishy beasts that don't transport at all well. Or they get plucked green, then ripen in transit but probably not as nicely as those juicy ones ripened on the stem.

Living in Korea for the past year, I have had the pleasure of eating the best tomatoes I've ever tasted. They're sold from the backs of pickup trucks on streets all over Seoul (when they're in season, of course), and I don't know who grows them, but they do it well.

If you live in a climat that supports it, try buying a tomato vine and growing your own tomatoes. Just letting them ripen on the vine makes a huge difference in flavor - and there's no better smell than the vine itself.

The problem, for farmers, is that tomatoes are sold by the pound, not by the taste. There's no money in a better tasting tomato, but lots of money in heavier ones. Most people don't get the chance to taste their tomato before they buy it, so it's hard for a better tasting tomato to get noticed in the grocery store versus a nice, big, shiny red one.

They're later ripened with gas (CO2, I think) closer to their destination. Part of the problem with this method is that they wind up mostly flavorless.

Actually they use ethylene gas, as this is actully what ripening tomatoes, and i believe, fruits in general, use in their ripening mechanism.

If you have several tomotoes in a sealed plastic bag they will all ripen a bit quicker as the ethylene released will affect them all.

That said, what you get when you pick green tomatoes and put them in ethylene, is a bunch of unripe tomatoes, which are hard on the inside, and have no real flavour. But look red on the outside.

Grow your own, if you have the weather for it. Or get a small green house. There is no way that the rubbish we get in supermarlkets wil taste anywhere near as good as a proper home grown (and naturally ripened) tomato.

The apple industry has done a nice job of differentiating premium cultivars (see the Honeycrisp) as well as defining a bunch of individual cultivars within the non-premium market.

Tomatoes on the other hand, basically have Roma, Cherry, and Other. There's a couple minor exceptions but for the most part there's little differentiation. I think this is part of the problem - it's hard for consumers to show preference for one variety over another when you don't know what you're getting.

I think Red Delicious apples are disgusting and I won't buy them. I love Gala apples. When I buy tomato plants for my garden I know I like Jubilee and Mister Stripey. But when I buy tomatoes at the store, they're just Tomatoes.

Science and food have done and can do a lot of good together. But one place I see the scientific approach consistently get it wrong when it comes to food is quotes like this:

Quote:

One of the things he discovered is that some heirloom strains are "really not very good."

Good is a subjective term. Just because these heirloom strains got low ratings in the taste test you did, doesn't mean they're "not very good." It means they aren't very good to those people under those circumstances.

Those same tomatoes that those people reacted poorly to under those tasting conditions may rave about the bold flavors of those same tomatoes used in a hash with chilis after being roasted. Or when paired with certain cheeses. Or used in combination with other tomatoes in a complex sauce.

When it comes to food, it's not a matter of "good" vs. "bad". There's not a single right answer. There's a nearly infinite variety of uses and applications. And chances are if this tomato is a true heirloom strain that people have bothered to keep around for generations, there's some appropriate uses for it where it truly shines.

I always buy vine ripened tomatoes at the store. Not as good as one you've grown yourself, but they are definitely better than those large hard as a rock beefsteak tomatoes that have no taste. Also you can find decent grape and cherry tomatoes as well.

Sell tomatoes that do not taste in Spain or France and you will not last more than one day. They do not care about size, shape or appearance - just taste and what sort of olive oil do they go with in the salad. Unfortunately in the Anglo-Saxon countries (big generalisation) appearance and size matters more. Shoppers’ demand dictates what is on offer.

The problem, for farmers, is that tomatoes are sold by the pound, not by the taste. There's no money in a better tasting tomato, but lots of money in heavier ones. Most people don't get the chance to taste their tomato before they buy it, so it's hard for a better tasting tomato to get noticed in the grocery store versus a nice, big, shiny red one.

Not sure this is quite true. A few years back I impulse-bought some heirloom tomatoes at Whole Foods for an eye-popping $5.99 a pound. To my astonishment, they actually (*gasp*) tasted like a tomato! So tomato-ey that they were suitable for a BLT, where a proper tomato really is essential. Ever since, I've bought those overpriced heirlooms whenever I needed good sliced tomatoes.

For sauces etc., however, I've stuck with cheap canned tomatoes and cherry tomatoes. Definitely the best everyday bet for good tomato flavor out of season.

The problem, for farmers, is that tomatoes are sold by the pound, not by the taste. There's no money in a better tasting tomato, but lots of money in heavier ones. Most people don't get the chance to taste their tomato before they buy it, so it's hard for a better tasting tomato to get noticed in the grocery store versus a nice, big, shiny red one.

And like anything sold by the pound, the farmers are inventivized by the market to pump their fruit full of flavorless water before selling.

Quote:

Good is a subjective term. Just because these heirloom strains got low ratings in the taste test you did, doesn't mean they're "not very good." It means they aren't very good to those people under those circumstances.

Indeed. Heirlooms are not magical or automatically awesome for every purpose simply because they are "heirloom." Heirloom varieties often represent generations of selective breeding for a particular set of conditions, and usually the culinary use of the tomato reflects the best use of the tomato that grows best and most consistently in a particular place. Heirloom A that grows well in subtropical loam with xyz disease and pest pressure may be a complete bust in Maryland or Virginia, and it may also taste completely different. Example: "Vidalia" onions taste like they do because of the soil they are grown in. You can grow the same variety in your back yard, but there's a good chance it will taste completely different.

While corporate seed company scientists are tasked with the idea that they must create one seed to rule them all, the reality is that in order to maximize flavor, productivity and nutrition, regional varieties (at a minimum) are probably needed. Florida's tomatoes are grown in what amounts to sterile sand, which is very different than the conditions of northern California.

As they tested heirlom tomatoes, any chance of getting the list of top ranking one to amateur gardeners, while we wait for the new variants?

Check with your local gardening groups and seed savers, and farmer's markets (provided the guy selling grew them and didn't just pick up a box at the local food distributor) for what grows well in your area and is popular. If you find a tomato at a farmer's market you really, really like, tomato seeds are ridiculously easy to save, or just ask the farmer for the variety name.

I think there's a wider lesson to be taken from this. Specifically, from the comments at the beginning:

Quote:

In the words of a panel at the meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of science, we "broke" the tomato by allowing the plant breeders to respond to the needs of farmers, instead of the tomato's end-users: consumers.

Working in IT (which I suspect many of us do, not just me), we need to keep this in mind. There's a lot that goes into making a product, and many points along the line at which you can make things easier for someone. But the end user needs to be the final arbiter; if you make life easier for someone else at the expense of the person using the product, you're doing it wrong.

Sweet Jesus this can't happen quickly enough. 90% of the tomatoes I find, both at the local farmer's market, and supermarkets, taste like wax - near flavorless. This includes the so-called locally-grown, Jersey tomato.

Best tasting, I can buy locally, are Campari tomatoes.

Best I ever had was in Maine. It was of the Heirloom variety, grown just a few miles from the restaurant. Never found another one that was as flavorful. Must be the soil.

Hope they can Science real good and unbreak the tomato's flavor power.

This is a solution to a non-problem. We already have 100's if not 1000's of different tomato varieties that have been bred through traditional means with a variety of different flavors and benefits for different soil conditions. We don't need tomatoes to be like a box of Tropicana orange juice -- where they create an orange flavor (albeit from real oranges) and add that to flavorless orange juice stored in vats to create brand recognition. Fruit and vegetables taste best when they are fresh (aka grown relatively near by) and in season.

There is no one tomato to rule them all, no perfect tomato that is going to solve the tomato problem.

If you doubt that it is possible to accomplish this because it is "too expensive" or "too hard", just look at so many other countries in this world that have wonderful produce. How do they manage while the US cannot?

Recent research has shown that picture perfect, uniform red, pretty tomatoes which we breed for supermarket consumption is a result of genetic defect, and that ugly uneven colored tomatoes tastes better.

In general I am not a fan of GM food, just too many variables to fully understand. However it appears that in this case they are taking the genetics from one tomato and inserting it into another; and hence, from the view point of the genes, it is just a artificial way of breeding, thus I would be more inclined to buy this. I hope they are a success (despite the fact that I do not have much of a sense of taste anyway).

If you doubt that it is possible to accomplish this because it is "too expensive" or "too hard", just look at so many other countries in this world that have wonderful produce. How do they manage while the US cannot?

Their food is too expensive. The typical american family spends less of their income on food than the vast majority of other countries. It is less than 10% here. Spain is close to 20%. India and China spend around 35%. If those countries grew food like we did, more money could be spent on things like education and starting businesses.

Nutrition and not starving must come first. Taste is a luxury that should come later.

This is a solution to a non-problem. We already have 100's if not 1000's of different tomato varieties that have been bred through traditional means with a variety of different flavors and benefits for different soil conditions. We don't need tomatoes to be like a box of Tropicana orange juice -- where they create an orange flavor (albeit from real oranges) and add that to flavorless orange juice stored in vats to create brand recognition. Fruit and vegetables taste best when they are fresh (aka grown relatively near by) and in season.

There is no one tomato to rule them all, no perfect tomato that is going to solve the tomato problem.

If you doubt that it is possible to accomplish this because it is "too expensive" or "too hard", just look at so many other countries in this world that have wonderful produce. How do they manage while the US cannot?

100's or 1000s of varieties that don't give half the yield. What farmer is willing to experiment with which tomato variety grows best in his fields when he could use that space for tomatoes he already knows will grow and grow a lot more of?

They don't want to add chemicals to tomatoes. They want to breed high-yielding good flavoured ones. There's a big difference.

Jersey tomatoes are the best. Anything from Florida generally tastes like shredded paper with red dye.

On apples, I maintain that the farmers did the same thing. Red delicious, golden delicious, and granny smith apples used to be decent. Now they have skin that's thicker than a cow's hide and zero taste.

Most people don't get the chance to taste their tomato before they buy it, so it's hard for a better tasting tomato to get noticed in the grocery store versus a nice, big, shiny red one.

I'm not sure if it's real or not, but I smell the stems of tomatoes and buy the most fragrant.

AncientToaster wrote:

For sauces etc., however, I've stuck with cheap canned tomatoes and cherry tomatoes. Definitely the best everyday bet for good tomato flavor out of season.

A better reason to buy canned vegetables is that they're grown ripe and usually canned with hours of being picked. They locate the canneries near the fields and in one example (corn?), the corn is in cans 45 minutes after arriving.

You can thank my copious hours of research watching Modern Marvels (and similar shows). Someone had to do it.

The problem, for farmers, is that tomatoes are sold by the pound, not by the taste. There's no money in a better tasting tomato, but lots of money in heavier ones. Most people don't get the chance to taste their tomato before they buy it, so it's hard for a better tasting tomato to get noticed in the grocery store versus a nice, big, shiny red one.

Not sure this is quite true. A few years back I impulse-bought some heirloom tomatoes at Whole Foods for an eye-popping $5.99 a pound.

>Bob.Brown wrote:>Quote:>>...allowing the plant breeders to respond to the needs of farmers...

>Well, duhhh! Who do you s'pose pays the plant breeders?

In large part, taxpayers. The Extension Service and land-grant colleges have had a large role in vegetable breeding, though it's declining. The article cites a researcher from Yale and one from the University of Florida....

As they tested heirlom tomatoes, any chance of getting the list of top ranking one to amateur gardeners, while we wait for the new variants?

Anecdote:

I've been growing tomatoes for my own use for about 8 years now and I've grown everything from the *Mart "good boy" hybrids to some relatively obscure heirloom varieties. I'm personally a big fan of the "brandywine" heirlooms. They are easy to grow, and produce tasty (and occasionally humorously misshapen - I swear I grew a WC Fields tomato a couple years back) fruits all summer long.

End Anecdote.

Having said that, honestly anything you grow yourself and allow to ripen on the vine (or even on your windowsill) will be vastly superior to anything you buy at a store. I'd suggest just grabbing a couple of indeterminate-type plants (don't fruit all at once) and sticking them in 5 gallon buckets with cages affixed so you can move them around if you need to. Kept watered, they are difficult to outright kill short of a freeze.

The issue is not so much what "Science" has done, but more that we have, by and large, colluded with the mass food chains, by demanding fuit and vegetables that look perfect. So the producers think that's ALL we want. So we end up with growers that produce food that looks great, but tastes like s**t.

They will say that tomatoes (flavour of the day, here. (Or not!) travel better when picked unripe, and to a certain extent that's true. Ripe tomatoes probably don't do too well in transit, tending to squash, I presume.But that begs the question as to whether it's a good idea to ship foods long distance, and linked to that the issue of "out of season" food, as normally there wouldn't be certain fruits and vegetables in northern climes in Winter, but yet we expect them to be available all year round in the supermarkets. Thus requiring shipments of foods over long distances where such produce may be grown

So once again, "we" the consumer, are complicit in this whole issue of demanding perfect produce all-year-round, which then requires the sort of practices that we are accusing the growers/distributors of

(Sorry)...of which we are accusing etc.(("That, is the sort of language, up with which, I shall not put!"))

Better tasting tomatoes would be welcome indeed, but the effect will probably not be very perceptible if they are still grown industrially, harvested green and eaten straight from the fridge (temperature plays an important role in taste).

As they tested heirlom tomatoes, any chance of getting the list of top ranking one to amateur gardeners, while we wait for the new variants?

One of our heirlooms from this year. Sweet, incredibly tasty, and easy to grow (if you plant it in the ground. You'd need a big pot for the plant). I believe it was a brandywine.

Brandywine is a deep red. That one might be Gold Medal, and Gold Medal tends to produce very large, non-acidic slicers that are relatively uniform, mostly yellow with mottled orange which fits your description.